I find it very irritating that when you queue a structure to be built it starts with 0 hp and is completely vulnerable to enemy attack.

I began to fortify a planet and queued up about a dozen defensive structures. Then a lone enemy light carrier jumped in with a squad of fighters. That little bugger was able to destroy 6 or 7 unbuilt orbitals in about 20 seconds before I could take it out.

This kind of thing is wrong for a few reasons. First, it is unrealistic. How can you blow up something that doesn't exist yet? Second, it makes it very difficult to set up defenses in contested areas. You have to queue them one at a time so that construction can begin on them almost immediately otherwise they just get blown up before construction ever begins - and even at that you would often have to queue the same structure multiple times before the construction frig finally makes its way over there.



A few ways to fix this:
The first thing that pops to mind is to make them start with full HP. This is probably the simplest way to deal with it and would also eliminate the issue where repair ships will repair the incomplete structures as if they were damaged.

Another option is to give structures that are at 0% the "invincible" attribute (like they get while under the effects of Armistice)... only problem there is that you would be unable to to destroy enemy queued structures after you have taken a planet from them so you'd have to take measures to prevent that from becoming an issue.

The best option, IMHO, is to make unbuilt structures be completely invisible to enemies until construction on them begins. In addition to being invisible they should, in effect, not exist. Ships, friendly and hostile alike, should be able to fly right through them. After all, until you actually start to build it that silhouette only represents future plans to build a structure, not an actual structure that exists in the present. You should be able to see your future plans but your enemy shouldn't.



Thoughts?